Garcia v. Freedom Debt Relief, LLC, Case No. 2:26-cv-03077

Primary Source: View Original Complaint (PDF) — Garcia v. Freedom Debt Relief, LLC, Case No. 2:26-cv-03077

Facts as Alleged in the Complaint

The following facts are taken directly from the complaint filed by Bianca Garcia against Freedom Debt Relief, LLC in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on March 22, 2026. These are allegations only; no finding of fact has been made.

1. Defendant Freedom Debt Relief LLC (“Freedom Debt”) pays commissions to various “affiliate marketers” that spam anyone and everyone whose e-mail address they can harvest. Freedom Debt’s affiliate marketers send spam using falsified header information, spoofed domains and nonsensical sending addresses to evade spam filters. They also use false and deceptive subject lines – everything that makes people hate spam.
2. Fortunately, California’s robust Anti-Spam Law imposes both strict liability and liquidated damages on entities like Freedom Debt that benefit from deceptive spam. It dispenses with the requirement of proving actual damages, intent, or scienter, and forces companies to actively monitor their e-mail promotions by imposing exceptionally broad liability.
3. Plaintiff is and was at all times mentioned herein a citizen of the State of California who received a misleading spam e-mail promoting Freedom Debt’s debt resolution services.
4. Freedom Debt is an entity based in California that offers debt repayment services.
5. Freedom Debt deliberately outsources its membership solicitation to third-party affiliate marketers to reap the benefits of large-scale unlawful spamming. Freedom Debt financially incentivizes these affiliates — paying them on a per-lead or per-conversion basis — to flood inboxes with deceptive “discounts” on Freedom Debt products, knowing that aggressive, non-consensual email campaigns generate sign-ups. These affiliates are not rogue actors; they are integral to Freedom Debt’s customer-acquisition strategy and are compensated precisely because spam works. By structuring its marketing this way, Freedom Debt attempts to enjoy the profits of illegal email campaigns while plausibly denying responsibility for the very misconduct it knowingly authorizes, directs, and benefits from — conduct squarely prohibited by California Business & Professions Code § 17529.5.
6. This Court has subject matter jurisdiction of this action pursuant to the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (“CAFA”), 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2), because: (i) there are 100 or more class members, (ii) there is an aggregate amount in controversy exceeding $5,000,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and (iii) there is at least minimal diversity because at least one Plaintiff and Defendant are citizens of different states. Indeed, based upon publicly available information, the class is believed to include over 10,000 members – including citizens of all fifty states who use a “California e-mail address” as defined herein – and the amount in controversy is believed to exceed $100 million.
7. Venue is proper in this County because a substantial part of the events and omissions giving rise to the claim took place in this District.
8. Plaintiff Bianca Garcia is a California resident and citizen and is the owner of the e-mail address biancamua28@yahoo.com. Freedom Debt spams her and other class members without mercy. In the most recent example, in March of this year she received a spam e-mail from the nonsensical address “dvjfkvpsyh@cjminori.com” with the subject line “You Could Say Goodbye to Credit Card Debt Stress. Learn How!” That spam is attached hereto as Exhibit “A”.
9. The spam was sent from a “spoofed” e-mail address dvjfkvpsyh@cjminori.com to conceal the identity of the true sender and evade spam filters. Indeed, after receiving the e-mail, Plaintiff searched the publicly available WHOIS database to identify the sender associated with the domain, but was unable to do so, because the sending domain was not registered to, publicly associated with, or traceable to Freedom Debt through WHOIS or any other public registry.
10. Plaintiff clicked on the link in the spam and was eventually taken to a landing page of Defendant’s website at https://apply.freedomdebtrelief.com/55o4/estimated-debt. The fact that the spam email directed Plaintiff to Freedom Debt’s landing page containing numerous tracking and attribution parameters demonstrates that the message was part of a coordinated affiliate marketing campaign rather than a one-off communication. The presence of fields such as campaign IDs, publisher identifiers, referral sources, and sub-ID parameters shows that the link was uniquely generated to track the recipient’s click, attribute that traffic to a specific marketer or “publisher,” and ultimately credit that affiliate for any resulting lead or transaction. This type of infrastructure is standard in affiliate networks and reflects a pay-for-performance model, where third-party marketers are incentivized to drive traffic — often through mass email campaigns — using tracked links supplied or approved by the advertiser. Because Freedom Debt receives, processes, and benefits from this tracked traffic, and has the ability to monitor and compensate the affiliate responsible, the link structure itself is strong evidence that the email was sent as part of an affiliate spam operation rather than independent or unsolicited conduct.
11. The email’s metadata and embedded code reflect multiple indicia of spam evasion and deceptive marketing practices because they demonstrate deliberate efforts to obscure the sender’s identity, bypass authentication protocols, and manipulate how the message is interpreted by both spam filters and recipients. The header information reveals inconsistencies in sender domains and failed or suspicious authentication signals (such as SPF/DKIM/DMARC issues), suggesting the message was relayed through third-party infrastructure or spoofed sources rather than a legitimate, traceable business. At the same time, the subject line and sender name are altered using hidden or non-standard characters (e.g., soft hyphens) to evade keyword-based filtering and disguise the true content of the message. Within the body, the email relies heavily on HTML formatting, image-based content, and tracking-enabled hyperlinks routed through intermediary domains, which mask the ultimate destination and allow the sender to monitor user engagement. The presence of tracking pixels, minimal plain-text content, and generic or misleading branding further indicates a coordinated attempt to maximize deliverability and click-through rates while minimizing transparency, all of which are hallmarks of sophisticated spam and deceptive marketing campaigns.
12. The subject line is deceptive in violation of California Business & Professions Code § 17529.5(a)(2) because, although it appears to be a straightforward and informational statement to the ordinary recipient, it is in fact both technically obfuscated and substantively misleading. As reflected in the email’s metadata, the subject line is broken into encoded UTF-8 segments containing repeated non-visible Unicode glyphs embedded between characters, which are imperceptible to the reader but deliberately inserted to evade spam filters and disguise the message’s true structure. This technical manipulation allows the sender to deliver a commercial solicitation under the guise of a benign, individualized message. At the same time, the substance of the subject line — suggesting that the recipient could “say goodbye to credit card debt stress” and “learn how” — falsely implies the provision of legitimate, actionable guidance or a genuine solution, when in reality the email is a marketing funnel designed to sell or solicit services, often subject to undisclosed conditions and limitations. By combining hidden obfuscation techniques with a promise of simple or guaranteed relief that is not actually provided, the subject line is likely to mislead a reasonable recipient as to both the nature and efficacy of the message, rendering it deceptive under § 17529.5.
13. The preceding is just a single example of the spam that Defendant sends to class members. Based on publicly available sources, it is believed that Freedom Debt is responsible for over 100,000 spam e-mails to class members in all fifty states every year.
14. Plaintiff’s e-mail address is a “California e-mail addresses” because Plaintiff ordinarily accesses the e-mail address from computers in California. See Bus. & Prof. Code § 17529.1(b). Citizens of other states who regularly access their e-mail in California are included in the class.
15. The spam identified above is an “Unsolicited Commercial e-mail advertisement” because plaintiff had no pre-existing relationship with Defendant and because the e-mail was initiated for the purpose of advertising or promoting the lease, sale, rental, gift offer, or other disposition of any property, goods, services, or extension of credit. See Bus. & Prof. Code § 17529.1(c).
16. Plaintiff never gave “direct consent” to receive commercial e-mail advertisements from Defendant or its marketing agents. Indeed, “direct consent” under the statute requires a unique level of specificity and clarity that must be informed, knowing, and explicit — meaning that consumers must be told clearly that they are agreeing to receive advertising emails from a particular sender, and for what purpose, at the time they provide their email address.
17. The above spam violates Bus. & Prof. Code § 17529.5 in three separate and distinct ways:
    1. Unauthorized Use of a Domain Name in Violation of Section 17529.5(a)(1). The spam email’s use of the domain cjminori.com constitutes unauthorized use of a domain name in violation of Business and Professions Code § 17529.5(a)(1) because the domain has no legitimate relationship to Freedom Debt and was used solely as a transmission shell to conceal the sender’s true identity. Section 17529.5(a)(1) prohibits the use of a domain name in a commercial email that is “falsified, misrepresented, or forged,” including where the domain is not owned by, licensed to, or authorized by the advertiser whose goods or services are being promoted. Here, the domain is a nonsensical, content-free domain that bears no semantic, commercial, or traceable connection to Freedom Debt and does not enable a recipient — or a reasonable investigator using publicly available tools — to identify who actually sent or authorized the message.
    2. Misrepresented Header Information in Violation of Section 17529.5(a)(2). The email contains forged header information in violation of Business and Professions Code § 17529.5(a)(2) because the header data was deliberately structured to conceal the true sender and prevent the recipient from identifying or tracing the advertiser responsible for the message. The email was sent from a spoofed or nonsensical sender address dvjfkvpsyh@cjminori.com that bears no relationship to Freedom Debt and used Unicode spacing to evade spam filters. Nothing in the header permits a recipient — or a reasonable investigator using publicly available tools such as WHOIS — to determine who actually sent or authorized the email.
    3. Deceptive Subject Line and Contents in Violation of Section 17529.5(a)(3). The email contains a deceptive subject line and misleading contents in violation of Business and Professions Code § 17529.5(a)(3). The subject line is both technically and substantively misleading as described in detail above.
18. Although a plaintiff need not plead or prove actual damages to bring a claim under the statute, Plaintiff has in fact suffered concrete, particularized harm as a result of Defendant’s conduct. Plaintiff spent valuable time and attention investigating the misleading offer; searching the WHOIS database to learn who the e-mail came from; incurred opportunity costs and lost productivity; and suffered depletion of device and network resources, including storage space, bandwidth usage on a metered data plan, and battery life.
19. The unauthorized domain name, misleading headers and subject lines also invaded Plaintiff’s privacy and disrupted the ordinary use and enjoyment of Plaintiff’s email account, diminishing its value as a communication tool and necessitating additional filtering and security precautions. These injuries were directly caused by Defendant’s unlawful email and are redressable by statutory and injunctive relief.
20. Defendant has not established and implemented, with due care, practices and procedures reasonably designed to effectively prevent unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisements.

Claims for Relief

First Cause of Action: Violation of California Business & Professions Code § 17529.5. Plaintiff received the above unsolicited commercial e-mail at a California e-mail address within one year prior to filing the Complaint. As shown above, the spam violated one or more provisions of Section 17529.5. Defendant is strictly liable for violation of Section 17529.5 for sending spam and is liable in the amount of $1,000 per spam per class member. Defendant has not established and implemented, with due care, practices and procedures reasonably designed to effectively prevent unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisements that are in violation of Section 17529.5 that would justify a reduction in liquidated damages. Plaintiff and every Class member who received any violative e-mail are entitled to $1,000 in liquidated damages per e-mail from Defendant (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17529.5(b)(1)(B)(ii)), and to recover reasonable attorney’s fees and costs (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17529.5(b)(1)(C)).

Remedies Sought

• For an order certifying that the action be maintained as a class action, that Plaintiff be designated as class representative, and that undersigned counsel be designated as class counsel
• For all available declaratory, legal, and equitable relief including injunctive relief
• For statutory damages
• For punitive damages
• For attorneys’ fees and costs as allowed by law
• For any and all other relief at law or equity that may be appropriate

Frequently Asked Questions

Has Freedom Debt Relief been found liable?

No. This is a complaint — a legal filing that contains allegations. Freedom Debt Relief, LLC has not been found liable for any wrongdoing. Courts require proof before entering judgment.

What is California Business & Professions Code § 17529.5?

Section 17529.5 is California’s anti-spam law. It imposes strict liability on entities that benefit from deceptive commercial email — meaning a plaintiff does not need to prove intent, scienter, or actual damages. The statute prohibits sending commercial emails with falsified or forged domain names (§ 17529.5(a)(1)), misrepresented header information (§ 17529.5(a)(2)), or deceptive subject lines and contents (§ 17529.5(a)(3)). Liquidated damages are $1,000 per violative email.

Who is included in the proposed class?

The complaint defines the proposed class as all United States citizens in any state who received any commercial e-mail promoting any Freedom Debt product or service at a California e-mail address where such email(s) contained: (1) a falsified, misrepresented, or forged domain name; (2) falsified, misrepresented, or forged header information; or (3) false or misleading subject line or contents. The complaint alleges the class includes at least 100,000 members.

What are “hidden Unicode characters” in a spam email?

The complaint describes a technique where non-visible Unicode glyphs are embedded between the visible characters in an email’s subject line. The subject line appears normal to a human reader, but its underlying code structure is altered to evade automated spam filters that rely on keyword detection or pattern matching. This technique is commonly referred to as Unicode padding or zero-width character insertion.

What does “strict liability” mean under this statute?

Under California’s anti-spam law, strict liability means the advertiser who benefits from a deceptive commercial email can be held liable even if they did not personally send or initiate the email. The statute does not require proof that the defendant intended to deceive or even knew about the specific email — liability extends to any entity that advertises in the deceptive emails. This principle was established in Hypertouch, Inc. v. ValueClick, Inc., 192 Cal. App. 4th 805 (2011).

Source: CourtListener — Garcia v. Freedom Debt Relief, LLC, Docket 72528299. Information on this page is taken from the court complaint. These are allegations; no finding of fact has been made.